Richard Hakluyt (ca. 1530–1591)

Richard Hakluyt, better known as
Richard Hakluyt (the elder) or Richard Hakluyt (the lawyer) to distinguish him from
his younger cousin of the
same name, was an active propagandist of English colonization of North
America. Although his cousin, the editor of Principall Navigations,
Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589), was better known and
more influential, Hakluyt had been his guardian and introduced him to the study of
geography. Elected to Parliament in 1558, he corresponded over several decades with
cosmographers, merchants, fishermen, and other travelers, gathering information on
the new regions they contacted and providing advice and instructions for the pursuit
of trade, colonization, diplomacy, and exploration. Hakluyt's arguments that
colonization of the Americas would be a boon to English commerce and an opportunity
to Christianize the Virginia Indians likely influenced the views of his cousin, who
gave them wider currency. In 1585, concurrent with Walter Raleigh's proposed settlement in the Outer
Banks of present-day North Carolina, he authored two pamphlets in favor of colonial
ventures, but he died in 1591, before the permanent colony, at Jamestown, could be established. MORE...

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Early Years

Richard Hakluyt was born probably early in the 1530s, the son of Thomas Hakluyt at
Eyton, in Herefordshire, England. He had three sisters, Winifred, Elnor, and
Barbara. After the death of his father, his stepmother, Catherine, and her husband
Nicholas Depden became his guardians. In 1555, he was admitted to the Middle
Temple, one of London's Inns of Court, to study law. In 1557, he was named as
"overseer" in the will of his uncle, Richard Hakluyt, with a small legacy for the
trouble, and it is likely he became the guardian of his younger cousins. Among
these was Richard Hakluyt (the younger), who was five or six years old at the
time. This younger cousin later credited Hakluyt for his own lifelong passion for
geography; on a visit to the lawyer's Middle Temple chambers in 1568, Hakluyt (the
younger) showed an interest in "certain books of cosmography, with a universal
map" lying open on the table, and years later described the geography lesson the
lawyer then gave him: "he pointed with his wand to all the knowen Seas, Gulfs,
Bayes, Straights, Capes, Rivers, Empires, Kingdomes, Dukedomes, and Territories of
ech part, with declaration also of their speciall commodities, & particular
wants, which by the benefit of traffike, & entercourse of merchants, are
plentifully supplied."

Hakluyt practiced as a lawyer and was elected
to the Parliament of 1558 to represent Leominster, a market town in Herefordshire.
All his surviving writings, however, are related to geography and colonization.
About 1568, Hakluyt wrote to the Flemish cosmographer Abraham Ortelius with a
proposal for construction of a world map and an accompanying piece of furniture,
one that would make it easier to use the large maps then being produced for use in
the small rooms of most private residences. (Ortelius's groundbreaking work, the
atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, or "Theater of the World,"
was published in 1570.) The details Hakluyt provided in his letter about
particular geographical features, sources of information, and the importance of
both scale and latitude/longitude markings make clear that he had studied both
geography and cartography in some depth.

Evidence for the lawyer's work during this period appears in Hakluyt (the
younger)'s Principal Navigations. Materials attributed to
him include letters and reports from India, Roanoke, New Spain, and Newfoundland
as well as instructions for Englishmen traveling to Turkey, to the Americas, or in
search of a Northeast Passage to China. In the preface to his 1589 collection, the
younger Hakluyt acknowledged his cousin the lawyer, along with Sir John Hawkins
and Sir Walter Raleigh, as a source of his "chiefest light" regarding the
Americas.

American Colonization

One of Hakluyt's neighbors in the Middle
Temple was Adrian Gilbert, who later supported the English explorer John Davis's
search for a Northwest Passage to China along the shores of Greenland and Arctic
Canada. Gilbert's brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, had been engaged with this
particular geographical problem as early as 1567, when he wrote A Discourse of a Discoverie for a New Passage to Cataia, arguing that a
Northwest Passage must exist. (The text was published in 1576.) In 1578, Queen
Elizabeth I granted Sir Humphrey Gilbert a six-year patent to explore and plant
lands not already claimed by other Christian rulers. Although the patent did not
specify a location, Gilbert and others understood it as granting him rights in
North America.

As Gilbert planned his voyage of the same year—one that would fail to reach North
America—Hakluyt prepared recommendations for voyagers to northern America, and
these would later be printed by Hakluyt (the younger) in Divers
Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America, and the Ilands Adjacent
(1582), part of an effort to promote a later phase of Gilbert's American project.
Hakluyt's notes make clear that he imagined Englishmen undertaking not only the
search for a passage through North America to China and the East Indies but also
the planting of a colony on the North American continent, somewhere between
present-day Philadelphia and northern Maine. His advice bears particularly on
ideas for making the colony self-supporting by producing goods (largely
agricultural) for trade, ideas later echoed by his cousin.

Gilbert died at sea in 1583, and the next
year the queen transferred his patent to Gilbert's half brother, Walter Raleigh.
Raleigh's efforts to settle a colony along the mid-Atlantic coast of North America
evidently appealed both to Hakluyt and to his younger cousin, who during the
mid-1580s was the instigator of several publications on North America dedicated to
Raleigh. Hakluyt (the younger) authored as well an extended argument for
colonization, Discourse on Western Planting (1584),
addressed to the queen. Also in 1584, Hakluyt (the elder) prepared a set of notes,
or "inducements," for Raleigh's proposed colony. (These exist in two versions; the
longer of the two was printed after Hakluyt's death.)

The hope of sailing "into the South Sea" and from there toward China and the
Indies, still important for Gilbert, had now become secondary to the objective of
settlement in a temperate region (roughly between Cape Fear and the mouth of the
Chesapeake Bay). Hakluyt
argued that colonization would provide new markets for English exports, especially
cloth; new employment for England's poor; and new sources for goods currently
provided by England's European competitors. Virginia Indians were envisioned as
potential trade partners whom the English would seek to convert to Christianity,
and perhaps to subject. But it was vital not to become "hateful unto them," as the
Spanish had become
to their own New World subjects.

Later Years

Hakluyt's interests were not only in North America, and he supplied advice for
travelers to the Near East as well as for a 1580 expedition in search of a
Northeast Passage. Although the documentary record of his life is sparse, the
range of his interests, his contacts, and his expertise indicate that he must have
played a significant role in planning and theorizing for the early decades of
English expansion beyond Europe.

Hakluyt wrote his will in 1587, "considering the mortal
state of man and the pestilent fevers so commonly reigning." Although all evidence
suggests that he was healthy at the time, he died in 1591; his will was proved on
March 4 of that year. It indicated no wife, children, or burial place. He left his
farm in Eyton, in succession, to Richard Hakluyt (the younger)'s brothers, Oliver
and Edmund, followed by Hakluyt himself. The lawyer left some of his belongings to
his sisters, the "eldest and beste beloved" Winifred Bruton, Barbara Evissham, and
Elnor Conesbie.

Although Hakluyt died before England established Jamestown as its first permanent
settlement, his thinking about colonization continued to be influential. The
second edition of John Brereton's work A briefe and true
relation of the discovery of the North part of Virginia (1602), describing
Bartholomew
Gosnold's voyage to "North Virginia" (New England) in the same year,
included along with the narrative of that voyage a version of the notes Hakluyt
had prepared for the Roanoke
colony in 1584. Gosnold would be among the first settlers of Jamestown in
1607.

Time Line

1555
- Richard Hakluyt (the elder) is admitted to the Middle Temple, one of London's Inns of Courts, to study law.

1557
- Richard Hakluyt (the elder) is named as "overseer" in the will of his uncle, Richard Hakluyt, and likely becomes the guardian of his younger cousins, including Richard Hakluyt (the younger).

1558
- Richard Hakluyt (the elder) is elected to Parliament to represent Leominster, a market town in Herefordshire.

1568
- While a student at Westminster School, Richard Hakluyt (the younger) visits his elder cousin of the same name at his Middle Temple residence. He finds the chambers full of maps and globes, likely the beginning of his lifelong interest in geography and colonization.

ca. 1568
- Richard Hakluyt (the elder) writes to the Flemish cosmographer Abraham Ortelius with a proposal for construction of a world map and an accompanying piece of furniture, one that would make it easier to use the large maps being produced for display in the small rooms of most private residences.

1572
- Richard Hakluyt (the elder) commissions an account of New Spain that is published in Richard Hakluyt (the younger)'s Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589).

1578
- Richard Hakluyt (the elder) prepares detailed recommendations, advice, and geographical background for members of a proposed colonizing expedition led by Sir Humphrey Gilbert. His notes are later published by Richard Hakluyt (the younger) in Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America, and the Ilands Adjacent (1582).

1579
- Richard Hakluyt (the elder) prepares notes for an Englishman traveling to Persia, asking him to pay attention to things that might be learned from the Persian textile industry.

1580
- Richard Hakluyt (the elder) prepares instructions for a Northeast Passage search planned by the Muscovy Company, including suggestions for gifts to bring to the Chinese court and things to be observed and brought back from China.

1582
- Richard Hakluyt (the elder) prepares two memorandums on trade with Turkey; both are concerned with learning new techniques for finishing textiles, identifying new dye stuffs, and finding new markets for English cloth.

1584
- Richard Hakluyt (the elder) prepares a set of notes, or "inducements," for Walter Raleigh's proposed colony in the Outer Banks region of present-day North Carolina. The longer of two extant versions will be published posthumously.

September 13, 1587
- Richard Hakluyt (the elder) makes his will, "considering the mortal state of man and the pestilent fevers so commonly reigning." All evidence, however, suggests that he is healthy.

1589
- Richard Hakluyt (the elder)'s instructions, notes, and memorandums, along with other geographical information he has collected, mostly concerning North American colonization, are published in Richard Hakluyt (the younger)'s Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation.

March 4, 1591
- The will of Richard Hakluyt (the elder) is proved and specifies no wife, children, or burial place. He leaves the bulk of his estate to his cousins.

1602
- Notes written by Richard Hakluyt (the elder) in 1584 on behalf of Walter Raleigh's attempts to establish an English colony at Roanoke are reprinted in John Brereton's work A briefe and true relation of the discovery of the North part of Virginia.

Contributed by Mary Fuller and Brendan Wolfe. Mary Fuller is a professor of literature at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of Voyages in Print (1995) and Remembering the Early Modern Voyage (1996). Brendan Wolfe is managing editor of Encyclopedia Virginia.